AGARTALA, May 14 (TIWN): Despite of several initiatives taken to curb down the rampant illegal felling of timber trees in various forest region, the Tripura Forest department has failed to curb the green gold loot in the State.

Reportedly, frequent smuggling of timber wood is becoming a serious issue in the State. Smuggling of expensive timber has rampant through the State with the failure of concern authorities comprising of Forest Rangers, DFO and the ministerial authority of the ruling Government.

According to the report, deforestation mostly hits over the Northern sector of the Forest Department like the Kumarghat area, Kanchanpur, Jumpui hill, Monu and various other places.

Further, it has been alleged that the timber businessman who want to sell the timber legally, could not able to acquire profit out of it due to the excessive road charges of the Forest department.

Reportedly, the timber smuggling issues are mostly performed at night in various interior parts of the state at large scale.

Allegation has been raised that the smugglers has an under table relation with the security forces including forest rangers and many other for making hefty profit out of this business.

The illegal trade through the unfenced border areas though not new totally but it has gone rampant recently.

The Indo-Bangladesh border is highly leaky making the illegal movement of smugglers and goods a regular affair.

The territory and the demographic composition of the border area made it favourable for Bangladeshis to sneak into India and also to get easily assimilated with the local masses.

The concern forest areas have become a convenient passage for smuggling of timber and other forest products.

Hundreds of tonnes of timber and other expensive wood are smuggled out to different places through the un-fenced Indo-Bangla international border.

On the other hand, the rampant smuggling of timber woods has lead to deforestation as well. Reportedly, deforestation mostly hits over the Northern sector of the Forest Department.